Ahh, Halloween. A perenial favorite holiday for all the pagen atheist devil worshippers out there. Although we do not experience the eerie fall weather in Southern California, people get really into Halloween down here. I found myself at a theme park 2 nights ago being chased around for hours by all sorts of demon nerds and dungeonmasters fresh out of Comicon. Good times.

Our associate Safety Scissors posted The Jacking Zone by Risque Rythum Team a few years back. It's a quintessential "Haunted House" cut flanked by a killer 808 cowbell and a spooky analog synthline. I am re posting The Jacking Zone along with the rest of the incredible Rysque Rythum EP from 1986. Now I am sure I could have dredged up something a little scarier, but my friend Steven coined this term a couple years back after hearing this cut for the first time and I have been itching to share the concept ever since.

BE logo designer and fellow wizard Xosar designed the above image for me as a nice Halloween gesture today. Go to her website and check out the insane design work and her ever evolving musical skillz.

I usually like to give a bit of background on a record, but sometimes there just isn't much to go on. Looking Good was a release by Benton Baptist on Kalico records, what would become a short lived Soca and reggae label, probably owned by keyboard session player Dexter Daley. Maybe someone who was part of the Brooklyn Caribbean community back in the early eighties would know more. I have never come across another record by Benton Baptist, I suspect he was a member of the reggae scene that crossed over into the New York funk scene now and again like Denroy Morgan or similar. Anyhow, thats just a long winded way of me saying I don't know much about this cut, other than its a synth'y monster on lots of wants lists, and for those who may have heard the vocal version here and there I'm putting up the instrumental as well.

It is a rare dreary day in LA, time to dust off the cobwebs and give BE some love. I realized today that I rarely post Italo tracks and since I have abandoned boogie for electro nu-rave in my new found Serato DJ status that at the very least Italo might be a little bit closer sonically to what I am "spinning" nowadays. Find me at my new blogspot: www.djfucknuts5000.com

Italian group Gaznevada put out quite a few records from 1979 until their demise in the late 80's. Special Agent Man fits the Italo mold nicely, which basically is cheesy vocals/lyrical concept meets a very solid groove. Anyways the instrumental version is hot and when the vocals do come in they sit pretty nicely in this track.

I apologize for the extended absence. I won't bore you with the details but after a bungled coup attempt by the other scheming BE members backfired I have now seized full control of the electro funk archives, ousted the pretenders and exposed what were once my crate digging comrades here at BeatElectric for the bandwaggon jumping serato DJ's they truly are. Their intentions were to give the site a re-design and relaunch it as an indie rock news hub, thereby increasing traffic from the college radio crowd and enabling them to stick up some banner advertising for American Apparel. I won't spare them another thought; moving on..

Turn It Up was the only single 25 West's famed producers Dave Fields and Matt Noble ever released under the name Beat Freax, and it was Down Town Records sole release also that I know of. Perhaps 25 West Records was a product of this first successful outing by the duo and was spawned out of Down Town. Matt Noble went on to produce some of the deepest records to come out of the early electro scene, he was behind B-Beat Girls, and along with Dave Fields, The Maniacs and many other underground dance acts. Its hard to think of many electro funk cuts from the era that are more upbeat than this, I get the feeling they were going for a pop radio hit. What could have been..